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FAQ

I followed the installation instructions, but TiXL still won't start. What can I do?

Installing the Visual C++ Redistributable often helps: vc_redist.x64 (from the Microsoft docs).

What's the difference to Touch Designer?

Both TiXL and Touch Designer use a directed acyclic graph — similar in spirit to Houdini, Maya, and Grasshopper. Information flows from inputs to outputs and both rely heavily on texture-based visualization.

What sets TiXL apart is its focus on keyframe animation and time manipulation, live coding with HLSL shaders and C#, and — thanks to its demoscene roots — small-executable export.

Touch Designer is a mature commercial product with a large community, extensive documentation, and professional support. Some concepts overlap, but underneath the tools diverge significantly.

Where are the Mac and Linux versions?

TiXL is built with ImGui and .NET, both of which run on Linux and macOS. The rendering engine, however, is DirectX 11 — a full port to Vulkan (with a Metal translation layer on macOS) is a large undertaking and not yet complete.

In the meantime:

If you have a background in .NET and Vulkan and want to help, get in touch.

Is there a standalone version?

Yes. Download the latest release from the GitHub releases page. The installer bundles the required dependencies (including the .NET runtime). See Installation.

How do I update TiXL?

TiXL aims to stay backward-compatible when updating. If you follow a few simple rules, git pull on the main branch should "just work":

  • Never modify symbols in the lib.* namespace without submitting a pull request.
  • Don't work directly in the [Dashboard] operator — create your own playground or project operators instead.
  • Use a consistent namespace for your operators, such as user.yourname.project.
  • Keep your personal resource files in their own folders, e.g. Resources/user/yourname/projectTitle/.

If you're using a standalone release, you need to copy the following to the new version:

  • Everything in .t3/
  • Your Resources/
  • Your custom operators

Future releases will streamline this migration.

How do I export an executable?

See Exporting executables.

How do I export an image sequence or video?

See Exporting videos.

TiXL doesn't start

TiXL writes a backup of all operators every three minutes. See Using backups for how to restore one.

Common causes of startup problems:

  • A crash during saving produced incomplete or empty files under Operators/Types/.
  • The internal state of an operator was corrupted and saved.